Three Poems

Goodnight

each star is an unspoken apology
ticket to a modern Shakespeare remake at the Civic that I couldn’t afford

 

the moon is a love song in a foreign language
we played tug-of-war with her faces, never singing the same melody

 

never gave you a Saturn ring
afraid. to retire our spaceship for coffee stains

 

the milky way, our gospel but
courage was the sun in our night sky

 

I clung to shooting stars with desperate hands.
you clung to my ankle.

 

you eclipsed me
black hole swallowed me

 

the night sky was a flower bed above a coffin
I gave you all the star bouquets

 

by midnight, the only thing left of me was a body.

 

Hairless
Response to ‘Cheek’ by Tusiata Avia

wind bites
yanking my long hair

 

along in the current
sand swallows my naked arms

 

there he is
young man’s hot hands

 

hamstring on my hairless thigh
single scream stolen by sky

 

like a mime.
me, on tiptoes

 

pressing a prison box
his thick fingers, cold ring clasping

 

my hands, like a first date
dark cinema in sixth grade

 

leaving my palms clammy
like, the first time ‘i love you’

 

Sightseeing

Cable car rooftop perspective:

long white hair dips
into soy chai latte
green umbrella outside Starbucks
people don’t like lids on their to-go cups here
guess they like spiced hair

 

Bob Dylan buildings
stumble over chewed gum
and homeless addicts
stabbing veins with yesterday’s smiles
jack-o’-lantern faces to the sky

 

on Lombard Street
teen girl’s Birkenstocks
trample busker’s coin fedora
quarters and receipts sparkle sidewalk
bitch doesn’t leave a dime

 

Apple airpod yellowed by earwax
fallen from an ear on Union corner
how Vincent van Gogh

 

woman leashes kitten
drags him down the sidewalk
coat sandpapered off his hind
leaves Hansel-Gretel trail of fur behind

 

100% natural sweetener truck
tips over, spills this plastic sugar on the crosswalk
blends into the white lines
pedestrians bring their umbrellas
believing in beach sand

 

water helps rush turds towards the sewer
hosed by man in blue uniform
here we got a problem
of people shitting in the streets

 

someone fakes bible verses into a megaphone
her partner identifying victims
forcing business cards into unprotected pockets
false good intentions

 

man hangs portuguese fish sign in door frame
smooching split lips at that harsh fish
like a lonely man

 

turning onto Jackson street
clotheslined by the power lines
I fell off that car
and put a crack in the spine
of my guitar